Greens to target Assembly seats

Interesting indications from the Green Party’s annual conference, picked up by this Press Association report, that they intend to run at least two candidates in the March Assembly election, assuming an election is held that is. According to the report the constituencies targetted are likely to be North Down, South Down and possibly South Belfast. Of the three, they’ve probably got the best chance of taking a seat in North Down, where ARK calculates they garnered 2,639 (8.2%) of the votes in 2005.Also noted is a resolution passed at the conference

At their annual general meeting on Saturday, Green Party members in Northern Ireland also backed a resolution which would see any of their candidates elected to the Assembly able to make their own choice as whether they should designate themselves at Stormont as a Unionist, a Nationalist or cross community MLA.

And the party has been emphasising their links North and South.. as well as East and West.

A Northern Ireland Green spokesman said: “What we are doing is following the logic of the Good Friday Agreement and are building relationships and formal ties within these islands.

“Today marks the completion of two years work in bringing us closer with our counterparts in the Irish Republic but we also have memoranda of understandings with our sister parties in Scotland and in England and Wales.

“By building these relationships, we will be able to tap into the expertise of our sister parties when we head into the next Assembly election and also as a regional executive of the Irish Green Party be able to draw on resources.”